"Emergency stop, sir," repeated Navigator formally. The great submersible slowed to a gentle halt. Not a dish rattled in the galley, not a stylus rolled off a console.

"Zero bubble, level ascent, blow all tanks, surface crash, now!"

"Aye-aye, Skipper. Express to the roof!"

Feeling oddly like an elevator, the floor rose underneath the crew, driving them ever upward. Then lights began turning red all over the status board.

"Internal hatches unlocked and opening, sir!" called out Chief of the Boat.

Captain glared at the man. "Impossible, COB! Override and close them!"

Hands racing over the controls, COB said, "Can't, sir. Something's stopping me."

"A short from the gas?" asked Sonar, just as a thick, billowing cloud of blue-gray smoke poured into the bridge, completely hiding the hatchway.

"Close that fragging hatch!" bellowed Captain furiously.

"Aye, sir," snapped Gunner, and taking a deep breath, she charged into the thick swirling mist. A spray of her blood came back first, then the woman stumbled out, both hands clutching her neck. Her throat was gone, red blood pumping out from a huge ghastly wound.

"What the fragging hell?"

"It's a mutiny!"

"Red alert!" boomed Captain, drawing his pistol. "Security, intruder defense goes on ... now. Code Romeo-niner-alpha!"

Silence from the intercom. Dead silence.

"No response from security, engine room, the galley," said Communications. "Slot me, skip, the whole boat is off line!"

Then, from out of the cloud, a knife came swooping through the air to slam between the eyes of Sonar. He went limp in his chair. There followed a series of soft chugs, and now the rest of the bridge crew also began to spurt blood and drop in their tracks. In mere seconds, Captain was alone on the bridge.

Galvanized into action, he raced for the map table, firing blindly into the cloud. Ricochets zinged everywhere. Clawing at the table, he ripped off a macroplas cover, exposing a small control array. He jabbed a finger toward the sensor plate, but his hand was stopped in midair by the massive grip of a troll in a fringed vest.

"Surprise," said Thumbs, lifting the norm into the air as if he was a child. "We win."

His wrist crushed, Captain let the pistol fall from his hand. Twisting about furiously, he finally just fired his cybergun. The small-caliber round went through the ceiling panels and did not ricochet. Thumbs grinned in victory, and the pirate kicked him in the chest with no appreciable effect.

Enraged, Captain loudly hissed like a bad impression of steam radiator, and twin steel fangs long as pencils jutted from his upper gums, tiny drops of a clear fluid glistening on the needle tips. Horrified, Thumbs released one hand and used it to fast-punch the pirate as hard as he could. Captain flew across the bridge to smack into the bulkhead and then drop to the deck limp as a ragdoll.

As Delphia, Silver, and Moonfeather emerged from the smoky mist, somebody leapt out from under a console and charged, swinging a monofilament knife in a practice arc. The blade whizzed centimeters from Silver's face. She whipped out her shock baton and Delphia leveled his silenced Manhunter, but Thumbs stepped between his fellow runners and the charging pirate. Ducking low, he kicked the man in the groin with the flat, not the point, of his boot. As the pirate tumbled, gasping and pale, Thumbs thumped him once gently on the head. Groaning, the norm sank, then tried to rise again, his palm outstretched. Thumbs kicked the pirate in the face with his boot and the norm collapsed twitching on the grisly deck.

"Why'd you leave him alive?" asked Delphia, checking the rest of the bridge crew. Down the corridor came the grisly sound of exploding heads.

"IronHell told me to," Thumbs said, really, really loud, pointing at his own head, and then the pirates.

Nodding in understanding, Delphia asked a silent question and Thumbs pointed at the crumpled norm. "IronHell needs him alive," he said theatrically.

Moonfeather turned the man over to see. "Yes, the rigger is okay," she said. Removing a necklace, Moonfeather laid it on the man and stood up. "He can't hurt us now, nor can the bomb."

"Smart move leaving him alive," whispered Delphia, moving away from the rigger anyway. Thumbs gave him a wink and a nod.

Under the consoles and behind the map table, the heads of the slain crew started to regularly explode.

"Jesus, Buddah, and Zeus, am I glad this thing has a grilled floor," said Thumbs, slipping a little. 'This is disgusting!"

"And that's fourteen here," announced Silver, toeing the fallen captain with her gore-streaked shoe. "According to the manifest, that's the lot of the .. . mutineers against IronHell. The ship is ours."

"Boat," corrected Delphia, coolly removing the silencer from his Manhunter. "They call it a boat."

"Anybody know why?" asked Moonfeather.

"Unknown," said Silver, taking a seat at the Security console and jacking into the submarine's operating system. She tested the keyboard with some taps. "But the first submersible ever built was a converted rowboat. So perhaps it stuck."

Lifting a bit of bone from a dead pirate, Moonfeather pocketed the grisly item and shrugged. "Yeah, maybe."

A tendril of wafting mist obscuring his features, Delphia asked, "Silver, can you vent this smoke out of here, please."

"Null perspiration." After a few ticks, a soft whirring noise permeated the bridge and the cloud noticeably thinned, taking a lot of the stink of the dead crew with it. Cool, fresh sea breezes wafted about. Then there came an unexpected banging and clanging sound. A steady rhythmic noise like a rain of hard hail.

"More exploding heads?" asked Thumbs, glancing about unsure.

Sonar went bang, followed by COB, and then Captain. "That's an exploding pirate. The other noise is from outside," said Moonfeather, glancing upward and wiping off a wet cheek.

"Activate the monitors," said Delphia, looking around, Manhunter back in hand. "Screens, windows, whatever the frag they're called. Activate the view screens!"

Pursing her lips, Silver nodded, her fingers moving awkwardly over the unfamiliar console. "Drek, this is a mess. Odd design, very old and reworked by some tech on drugs." Daintily, she pressed a sticky red button. "I have no idea what I'm seeing. You all seem to forget I'm a decker, not a fraggin' rigger!"

"Can you do it?" asked Thumbs, towering over her.

Every screen surrounding the bridge flickered into life, clearing into a panoramic view of the ocean around them. "There are only so many commands," Silver said slowly. "This one has View Screens On."

The choppy Atlantic Ocean was shown on four different screens, the dying squall moving away in an easterly direction. North was clear, as was the south and west. Some birds in the far distance, but that was it.

"No sign of the Esmeralda." Silver reported. "Low-level radar shows clear."

"It's been a couple of hours, and from what we know, the pirates rarely stick around after looting," Delphia said, studying the horizons. "And the storm is way the way over there. So what's that weird noise?"

"Fish?" suggested Thumbs.

"Jets!" said Moonfeather, pointing a hand at the western screen.

High in the corner of the view screen, almost off-camera, were three tiny shapes hovering in the air, motionless black birds with swept-back wings as if struggling against a powerful wind. The water below them was turbulent, nearly roiling. Lights sparkled from their noses. The rattling on the hull of the submarine continue nonstop.

"Eagles!" identified Thumbs. "Aztlan patrol!"

"Thank Yomi, no missiles yet," said Delphia, nervously holstering his gun and drawing it again. Slap-slap. "Those jump-jets can trash this can in a tick."

"They must think we're pirates!" growled Moonfeather.

Thumbs rapped a hull with a knuckle. "Lady, we ARE pirates!"

"Drek!" Delphia moved to a control console, staring helplessly at the array of buttons, switches, dials, levers, knobs, jackports, meters, telltales, and indicators. "This is a technophile's wetdream. How can anybody run this thing? Eta gaijin motherfragging pirate hoopheads ... Silver, get us out of here!"

Thumbs went over to the weapons console, touching this and moving that, proceeding with extreme care and achieving nothing.

"Outrace a military jump-jet?" scoffed Moonfeather.

Delphia motioned. "Straight down will do. A hundred meters and nothing they've got can touch us. Water is almost as good as dirt for stopping bullets."

"That would be artic if I could, but I'm sorry to tell you I can't," announced Silver over her shoulder. "The rigger setup is too tight, too specific. I can't override it. Only that guy can get us out of here!"

Sprawled by the map table, the rigger lay limply on the filthy deck, bubbling with every ragged breath.

"Moonfeather, heal him!" ordered Delphia, pointing at the pirate with his Manhunter for no sane reason.

"Gimme room," she said, kneeling alongside the man. "Cat! His jaw is busted into pieces. Even when that dumb-hoop troll tries to take 'em alive, he still hits like a freaking express train."

"Thanks," said Thumbs, flipping a switch. A whole row of lights came on, and as he touched one, they went out again.

"Can you do it?" Delphia demanded.

Moonfeather laid a glowing hand on his face and the bubbling slowed, but didn't stop. "Yes, given time."

"Done." Delphia spun about on his toes in martial arts stance. "Silver!"

"Yeah?"

"Send them our surrender. Full and unconditional."

19.

In the cockpit of the wing position Eagle, a young officer touched his ear, then his throat. "Spike to Hot Dog. Sir, I'm receiving a surrender request."

"Did not copy." Hot Dog adjusted the gain on his helmet radio while staring at the pirate sub in the middle of a freaky cloud bank. As protective covering, it was laughable. "Come again? They're asking to surrender?"

"What cojones!" sneered Sky Dancer, glaring through the tiny cockpit windows of the third jump-jet. "Let's toast these muchachos and glide, Capitan."

Touching the joystick, Spike put a burst of his nose guns into the waterline. The anti-personnel rounds did no appreciable damage. "Correction, Sky Dancer. They are surrendering to us."

"Hot bulldrek. Hot bulldrek on toast."

"Maybe we've hurt the ship with the Victories?"

Watching the stream of their 10mm rounds take paint off the submarine's conning tower, Hot Dog was not swayed. "Boat," he corrected. "And I don't know, companero. I've seen 'em sink from machine gun fire, the old ones anyway. The pressure and temperature of the deep sea make their armor brittle as glass over the decades. Some of them are only held together by mana, not rivets. But surrender?"

"We sure they're pirates?"

"Got a skull and crossbones on the conning tower. What else could they be, Free Masons?"

A barked laugh. "Point taken. Si, tell 'em to send the captain and rigger out in sixty or else we launch the Hellfires."

"Sir? We going to waste Hellfires on a sub?"

Another burst. "Don't be tonto. Of course not. We'll use Stingrays. But you always threaten with your big stick."

"Understood, wing commander. I'll relay the message."

Silver spoke without moving, "They're giving us sixty seconds or else."

"Not enough," said Moonfeather, her hands shimmering over the supine pirate. "He's not conscious yet."

"I'll give 'em or else," snarled Thumbs. The controls were unfamiliar to him, but the basic operation seemed similar to any defense console. And thankfully, the switches and buttons were clearly marked. Made sense because it would be all too easy to flip the wrong switch in the heat of battle and get the crew geeked instead of the enemy. So everything was clearly labeled to try and keep friendly-fire accidents to a min. Cross hairs formed on the screen, and an indicator showed that the accumulators were fully powered. "Main gun is ready!"

"Great," said Delphia, sliding into the captain's chair. "What is it?"

"Let's find out," said Thumbs, and he pressed the stud.

A shimmering, multicolored beam of coherent light lanced out from off-screen and missed the foremost hovering jump-jet by the thickness of a coat of paint. The heat flash of the beam's passage through the atmosphere caused severe turbulence, and the fighter wavered, wobbling to recover its balance. Thumbs fired again, and the Eagle silently formed a fireball of truly impressive proportions. "Got one. I got one," said Thumbs.

"Hey! The other two are backing off," announced Silver, watching the radar screen.

"Getting combat room," corrected Delphia grimly. "They'll be back in half a tick."

"So I'll zap 'em again," smirked Thumbs. He beamed in pleasure at the console. "Here I am with my hands on the trigger of an Ares Firelance, and my mother said I'd never amount to anything."

A low moan came from the sprawled rigger, his face no longer an imprint of the troll's boot. "Kill the lights," snapped Moonfeather, stepping away from the norm. "He's coming around."

Struggling back to consciousness, Rigger saw that the bridge was black, only the emergency chemical lights dimly showing vague forms here and there. The air smelled fresh, with only faint lingering traces of that weird mist and death.

"Wazhappened?" asked Rigger. "Cap?"

"We're under attack by Aztlan jump-jets," said a muffled voice in the darkness. "Get us the frag out of here or we're all meat for Davy!"

"Firelance?" he asked as somebody really big helped him to the navicom.

"It's damaged," said the gruff voice. Sluggishly, Rigger grabbed hold of the control surface at the main board and started boosting systems.

"Dive, damn ya. Dive!"